Technology Innovation for Sustainable Development (2011-present)

Potluck Energy: Solar Installations Shared Among Community Members

Michele Lunati founded Potluck Energy. Potluck Energy brings together residents, investors, and property owners to make solar energy a financially viable alternative for the community. Potluck Energy is based at Harvard’s Innovation Lab and MIT’s Energy Ventures. Once the PV panels are installed in a shared site, Potluck Energy lets a group of local residents, without a rooftop suitable for PV, receive solar electricity in their homes through offsets in their utility bill, without any installation required at their home. Solar communities can meaningfully reduce the installed cost of solar compared to traditional residential solar, thanks to their economies of scale of pooling together several off-takers in one single system. Long-term, the mission of Potluck Energy is to make solar energy affordable and less dependent on incentives, by sharing medium-scale solar installations among community members. Michele worked at Potluck to lay the foundations for realizing an initial community solar pilot for Cambridge and Greater Boston. Working with the real estate firm ABG Realty and solar developer Solar Design Associates, he worked out the contracts, lease, liabilities and insurance for an initial location. Potluck is renting an under-utilized rooftop of a large industrial building in Chelsea, MA. After installing the panels on the roof of the building, Potluck will let a group of local residents, without a rooftop suitable for PV (73% of American rooftops are not suitable for solar) receive solar electricity in their homes via virtual net metering (an offset in their utility bill), without any installation required at their home. Solar communities can reduce the installed cost of solar by about 30% compared to traditional residential solar, thanks to their economies of scale, making it more advantageous for customers who can save up to $200 per year on utility bills .For realizing the first installation, they have aggregated a waiting list of more than 100 customers interested in participating in community solar. Over the summer Michele presented at Harvard’s i-Lab Demo Day, an event reserved to 10 i-Lab startups, and Potluck was featured on BostInno. Potluck is currently based at the Harvard's Innovation Lab on the HBS campus. See, ‪ http://potluck-energy-frontend.herokuapp.com/